Franco Fagioli’s international career took off in 2003 when he won the exceptional singer prize at the world famous Bertelsmann "Neue Stimmen/New Voices" singing competition. Franco Fagioli has, since then, appeared regularly at opera houses in Buenos Aires, Karlsruhe, Bonn, Zurich, Essen and Genua. He has also appeared at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, at the Halle Festival, in Ludwigsburg and Innsbruck, amongst others. In 2011 Franco Fagioli was awarded the "Premio Abbiati" prize as best Singer of the Year – the most important music award in Italy. Highlights in recent seasons have included Nerone in two new productions of L’incoronazione di Poppea in Cologne and Dresden and Arsace in Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira at the Festival della Valle d’Itria. He will start feeling really at home at the Salzburg Festival and Theater an der Wien in coming seasons: in May 2013 he sings Isacco in the Biblischen Opfer/Biblical Sacrifice by Niccolò Jommelli in Salzburg and in Vienna he will sing the title role in Handel’s Solomon. Fagioli’s first recital in Europe took place in Stuttgart in 2009, and was an enormous success. He appeared as a special guest in recitals by Cecilia Bartoli in London and Brussels. Franco Fagioli works regularly with conductors including Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alan Curtis, Diego Fasolis, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Michael Hofstetter, René Jacobs, Konrad Junghänel, Marc Minkowski, Riccardo Muti and Christophe Rousset. His discography includes the title roles in Gluck’s Ezio (OehmsClassics / SWR) and Handel’s Teseo (Carus Verlag / SWR), a role in Handel’s Berenice (EMI / Virgin Classics) and his highly acclaimed solo album Canzone e cantate (Carus Verlag / SWR). The first ever recording of Vinci’s opera L’Artaserse was released by EMI / Virgin Classics in September 2012. This was soon followed by a recording of Fagioli’s solo programme Arias for Caffarelli with the Orchester Il Pomo d’Oro conducted by Riccardo Minasi (Naïve).